Grace & Dalmar Show – Episode 3

The Grace & Dalmar Show is a short web series that highlights upcoming artists at The Cedar, hosted by Grace Evenson (Cedar Booking Coordinator) and Dalmar Yare (Cedar Artist in Residence).

Söndörgő (pronounced shoendoergoe) is one of the most active and interesting world music groups in Hungary. The group was founded in 1995 in Szentendre a small Hungarian town near Budapest, with a long-established Serbian tradition. Söndörgő’s style of music is quite different from the traditional, fiddle-led hungarian repertoire. In contrast to most Balkan music, Söndörgő’s playing is not brass band music: they are a tamburitza band. The tambura is a small and agile plucked instrument similar to the mandolin, occasionally supplemented by wind instruments and accordion. Söndörgő’s traditional repertoire is made up of material gathered by Béla Bartók and Tihamér Vujicsics as well as learned from old masters of the tradition. Sponsored by Minnesota Hungarians & Ethnic Dance Theatre.

Tair, Liron, and Tagel Haim, who make up the group A-WA, grew up in a small southern Israeli village near the Egyptian border. The family’s Yemeni Jewish roots — and their love of the Yemenite language, an old and nearly extinct dialect of Arabic spoken by Yemeni Jews — inspired the Haim sisters to develop a new sound that weaves traditional Yemeni music and women’s chanting into a thoroughly modern, riveting electronic groove. A Facebook encounter with Balkan Beat Box’s Tomer Yosef led to a collaboration that has launched A–Wa on their own meteoric rise. “We feel like our music is sort of a bridge to connect people from Arab countries and from Israel and from all over the world. They relate to the music, the groove, and the story of liberation,” Tair told Forward.com

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Maarja Nuut is a fiddler and singer from Northern Estonia. Her music combines traditional dance tunes, songs, and stories with live electronics, creating a space where classical minimalism and experimental music meet the village musical traditions of pre-war Europe.

Check out some behind-the-scenes photos taken during the filming of this episode:

For more information and tickets for the shows mentioned in this episode, visit our events listing.